


They Say That Dreaming Is Free (But I Wouldn't Care What It Cost Me)

by AngelWithAStory



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Drabble, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Spoilers, post episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 04:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10891650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelWithAStory/pseuds/AngelWithAStory
Summary: "Tell me you’re not honestly thinking about going through with this.”Percy’s voice was accusing as he stood in the doorway. Tary could feel the weight of his gaze on the back of his head. Still, he did not turn around.EPISODE 97 SPOILERS





	They Say That Dreaming Is Free (But I Wouldn't Care What It Cost Me)

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaayyyyyyyyyy guess who's back with some more DaRolo content???
> 
> It's me. 
> 
> also I'm 18 now,,,, officially an adult,,,, how weird  
>  ~~my birthday was on the 5th but i've been playing a fuck tonne of breath of the wild that game is GOOD~~
> 
> anyway, did anyone really think I would leave this perfectly good angst-filled situation alone??  
> this is a spiritual sequel to [Nothing God or Science Can Recall](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10756206) so give that a read if you haven't already <3
> 
> title is from 26 by Paramore on their newest album After Laughter, that I haven't stopped listening to

“Tell me you’re not honestly thinking about going through with this.”

Percy’s voice was accusing as he stood in the doorway. Tary could feel the weight of his gaze on the back of his head. Still, he did not turn around.

The view from his bedroom window had barely changed over the last year or so. He could still see the landscape and the people barely smudges in the distance. His desk was the same: untouched and undisturbed. His writing equipment, his parchments, his bookshelves and old books. All untouched. All undisturbed.

“Percival, this is my family-”

“They are not your family if they treat you like this!” Percy exclaimed, stepping forwards and slamming the door behind him. Tary wanted nothing less than to be in a room alone with Percival right now. “You can’t tell me that _this_ is how family treats each other. Selling each other off to pay for their own crimes-”

“It doesn’t matter, Percy!”

The room was deathly silent.

“It doesn’t matter, Percival.” Tary said again, looking down at his hands on the desk. “Ultimately, what I am means nothing to my father. Only my name matters, and my name depends on my marriage to that woman I don’t know.”

Another chair scraped against the floor as Percy sat beside him. They were quiet for a long moment. Then Percy sighed, and he pulled off his ring, engraved with the de Rolo crest.

“For a long time after my family was murdered, my name was my only identity.” Percy said slowly, looking down at the ring. He turned it slowly in his hands, watching the light catch on its surface. “It nearly drove me insane, long before Orthax ever could. I had seen _everyone_ I loved die right in front of my eyes. My entire lineage disappeared overnight and my city fell to the rule of vampires. My name was all I had. Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski De Rolo the Third. That was the long and the short of it. But a name only goes so far.”

Percy finally looked up at Tary, enraptured in this rare story.

“Percy-”

“Before Whitestone was liberated, my name meant nothing more than I survived and that I had something to remember. When we freed Whitestone and it started to recover, _then_ my name held some power again. But my name was still just my name. I was the same pompous arse that I always was, I just had some authority.” Percy said.

“Percy, please-”

“Tary, let me finish.” Percy said, shifting in his chair slightly so they were sat ever so slightly closer together. “Whether your family has riches or ruins, you will still be Taryon Darrington. If you leave now and never come back, or you get married in a few days and stay here forever, you will still be Tary. You will still be whoever you are in this exact moment. No amount of debt can erase a personality. Your father made mistakes, you should not be held responsible for them.”

They were quiet again.

Tary sighed, less like how Percy sighed (tired, frustrated, thinking) and more like how the twin’s sighed (desperate, searching, hopeful).

“Percy, you were a noble. You know that this is how it goes… Marriages keep families afloat.” Tary said, running a hand through his hair, pulling it anxiously. “If I can help save my family, then isn’t it my _duty_ as the eldest? As the only son?”

“I’ll admit I was never the eldest child, nor the eldest son,” Percy said, “but I do know one thing. You do not _leave_ family. You don’t pack your bags and leave, hoping never to return. That is not what family does.”

“Your precious Scanlan left. Was he not your family?” Tary said.

Percy’s jaw tightened. He knew he had gone too far, but maybe that was his plan. Maybe this would all be easier if Percy hated him. Maybe that marriage would be easier if whatever fragile thing that had formed between them this past year was severed once and for all. If Percy could no longer stand to see his face.

“Scanlan had his reasons.” Percy said slowly, choosing his words with care.

“ _I_ have my reasons.”

“Those aren’t good reasons, Tary!” Percy almost ( _almost_ ) pleaded. “You aren’t doing this for yourself. How can you bear to think about waking up every morning to a woman you can’t possibly hope to love.

“I know!” Tary shouted. Then, much quieter, “ _I know_.”

“You can’t do this, Tary.” Percy said. He leaned in, so their foreheads were touching. “Let us help you find another way around this. _Please_ , Tary. Don’t do this to yourself.”

Tary shut his eyes. He felt Percy’s hand find his. A warm metal band slid onto his index finger, just the slightest bit loose.

“Don’t do this to us, Tary.”

Then Percy kissed him, soft and slow. Tentative. Testing the waters.

The waves rushed to meet him and Tary’s hands were gripping onto Percy’s jacket like he was drowning.

Body heat; slightly chapped lips; rough palms along hips bones.

Tary stood from his chair, leaning over Percy, gently pulling him up so they both stood facing each other. The jacket fell to the floor, carefully stepped over. Armour had been long-since abandoned: there was no need for it in his old room. Not here. Not holding each other like this, tying together whatever loose threads threatened to break between them.

Tary let himself be lowered onto his bed; the sheets washed and made as if he hadn’t been gone for almost two years. He let Percy’s weight hold him down, ground him, bury him. He let himself be this distracted and this _loved_.

Memories of the same bed and a different man - a different face bearing down on him as their naked bodies explored each other, breath ghosting over skin and sweat staining his sheets, a different voice whispering, moaning, pleading his name, a different name on his own lips - flooded through his mind and it was too much _too much!_

Lawrence.

_Larry_.

Percy pulled away. He gently wiped the tears from Tary’s face. He kissed Tary’s forehead.

“I can stop.” Percy said, already pulling himself away enough for Tary to make his decision.

“No,” Tary said, reaching up and gently stroking away some loose hairs by Percy’s ear. “No, this is perfect.”

“Alright, then.”

Tary let the memories of his first love wash over him. He let his heart ache as Percy kissed him and held him and promised to save him.

He held the memories in his hands, then he let them go.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [queenmoggy](http://queenmoggy.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you want to also revel in the angst <3
> 
> (also I was halfway through posting when I had a maybe good idea for a second chapter????)


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